


Touch

by inb4invert



Series: Catalyst [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Obscurial Credence Barebone, Sad, Smitten Original Percival Graves, possibly canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 17:31:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12587008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inb4invert/pseuds/inb4invert
Summary: The man had appeared as if by magic, taking on form and reality amidst the flow of faceless passers-by,like a film actor--Credence had mutely gaped--stepping suddenly out from the flickering screen of a moving picture with a tentative smile.





	Touch

For as long as he could remember, Credence Barebone had measured time through the fading of scars.  
It was his most steadfast touchstone: amongst the barely-ever shifting details of his life, a certain reliance could be found in the transformational pace of his own skin.  
Fridays were for penance. A day of fasting and prayer: a day of pain. A wound earned on a Friday (and many there were), by Monday would hold a place only the passing of hours can bring. Grown tight and dry around the edges through dishwater and unforgiving city winds, the first crimson flush of fresh hurt aging with the presence of a brand. A reminder of human frailty, of mortality and sin. Here is where you did wrong, it would righteously pronounce; three days have passed since you were cleansed.  
The pages of a calendar writ in flesh and blood: scabs wilted and fell away, leaving behind only the promise of more to come.  
No matter the particular day, Credence, tired and hungry, would walk the streets of Manhattan proselytizing with weary tread, pamphlets and palms both inked with urgent warnings, the rasp and catch of paper against each laceration counting down the minutes.  
If anyone had thought to ask (though no one would, no one ever asked Credence anything of importance), he couldn't have said what it was that he was waiting for, what feats of patience had him marking the length of his own shadow against those of the skyscrapers that dwarfed him. And yet, at times it seemed more important than breathing: the calculation of old hurts, dates inscribed in ghostly lines on slender wrists and bruised-raw ribs.

At night, in the silent, secret-swallowing dark, Credence would often weep into cupped palms, imagining his tears as a healing balm to wash away the pain of his transgressions--holding them salty and stinging in the valley of his aching hands. Fresh shame would seize him then, in these moments, always, knowing it was not for him to give reprieve, that there was no absolution to be found in a sinner's sorrow. Face flushed and burning, chest heaving with each stifled sob, he would grasp at thoughts of Jesus, praying for His forgiveness and yearning with all his blasphemous heart for a savior’s touch. One that he could feel. One that could lift away the weight of years from his heavy soul and cradle him with hands that left no mark.

Yet there were times, countless moments curled in upon himself in the small hours, when Credence had felt that the force of his unvoiced yearning alone might be enough to break the confines of his narrow life. That he might shed his very skin--become a being of pure longing and unappeasable hunger, escaping through acts of devourment all those things that shaped the parameters of his world: the kiss of the leather belt, the dusty confinement of city streets from which his ma's voice rang out terrible and shrill, his sisters’ scrutinizing looks--the fear and the shame and the harvesting of wounds--all of it, gone. Caught between waking and sleep, he could imagine himself grown immense as the sky, soaring above Manhattan's tallest towers, free to touch all that he surveyed. And still, even despite the striving of his caged heart, Credence had retained his shape, his scarred and lanky frame a vessel of sinful, patient ambition. A lonely creature of half-healed cuts and empty hopes.

In a city that never sleeps, day in and day out, Credence had sought fulfilment in the scope of his tiny life, hoping to find solace in quiet acts of service. A silent, street-corner disciple, watching the endless procession of the city's damned--each face a closed door--reaching out with chapped fingers to spread his ma's word to those with lives more rich than his own. Someone to be shunned and carefully stepped around: the obedient Prince of a nation of sullen, empty-eyed street orphans, stacks of paper held clumsy in their small hands. Carrying out his appointed duty, head bowed and shoulders hunched, Credence had held himself tense with anticipation, all the while his mind teeming with the relentless sameness of each passing day. 

 

As he counted out the week by the itch of healing wounds, it was a day like any other (Saturday, his tender shoulders had told him) when Credence was approached by The Stranger. The man had appeared as if by magic, taking on form and reality amidst the flow of faceless passers-by, _like a film actor_ \--Credence had mutely gaped--stepping suddenly out from the flickering screen of a moving picture with a tentative smile. Captive to an autumn downpour and the wild thrumming of his own pulse, he’d watched from beneath a shop-front awning as the impeccable man ducked down to share in its meager shelter and commit the unthinkable: the extension of an offered hand.  
In silent disbelief, Credence had slid his trembling fingers into the promise of that unmarked palm fearing it would vanish at his tainted touch, taking its celluloid bearer with it to prove no more than a fleeting, urban mirage. Bestowing him with a smile almost impossibly kind, the man had said his name was _Graves_ : a death-word, a word of funerals and finality. With the strength and surety of the man's grip against his own broken skin, held beneath the dark-browed gaze of eyes alive with interest, Credence had thought that he would gladly die if he might claim this man as his final resting place. To curl himself, formless and safe within Mr. Grave's broad frame--eternally held--would be a heaven even the saints had never imagined. _He sees me_ , Credence had thought in astonishment, and on the heels of that: _his hand is so warm_. 

From that moment on, Credence came to look upon the timeline of his life as comprising two distinct halves: the time before Mr. Graves and the rose-hued fever dream of every day thereafter. In his mind, in a memory poured endlessly over, their first encounter took on the weight of an angelic visitation, rich in symbolism and meaning. No longer measuring time's passage by the closing of wounds, he would mark the worth of his continued breath in coveted sightings and lingering moments spent in secret. With little more than the touch of a hand, Credence had become a man possessed. Drifting through the city streets, mindlessly dispensing someone else's empty words of fear, the simple glimpse of a well-tailored coat had the power to send him nearly swooning with unbridled hope. 

Those days when the man would come to him were the sustenance of Credence's long-suffering soul. Hovering close in darkened alleys, sharing one shadow, he would listen raptly to the man's murmured tales of a forbidden world, all the while savouring the heat of the hand rested lightly on his shoulder. In nearly no time at all--a lifetime's worth of the good book traded in favour of the gospel of Mr. Graves. Later, alone in the darkness of his narrow bed, Credence would whisper the strange words that had been gifted to him, tracing sore fingertips gently over his lips and imagining the hot press of the mouth that had brazenly spoken them by day. 

Time itself lost all cohesion in the face of Mr. Grave's magnetic presence, its infallible laws bending and shaping around his will. Only he was constant, the axis upon which Credence's earth would forever turn. Days spent in his absence stretched themselves wearily out, every passing second a painful eternity, only to set themselves racing again whenever he was there. The man, Credence would come to find, held even the power to send time spinning back on itself with no more than a tender touch.  
On the first occasion that Mr. Graves was kind enough to heal him, steady hands brushing softly over newly-minted cuts, Credence had trembled to feel his every doubt vanishing along with the erasure of his pain. Once his benefactor had gone--swirling to dissipate in the darkness like a spirit--Credence had knelt down in the dust of the deserted alley, smooth palms clasped, fervent and beseeching. Raining tears upon the dirty concrete, he’d prayed as he never had before: to God, to the vast surrounding city, to the empty space inside himself desperate to be filled. _Please, let me have this_ , he had begged, heart swelling fit to break, _please let me belong to this man and his world_. 

Nearly overnight, reborn in the light of Mr. Grave's smile, Credence could barely fathom the darkness of a life lived without him. Even in the drawn-out agony of hours spent away from the man's presence, he would carry the impression of Mr. Grave's solid strength as a talisman against the world. Clinging to the treasured memory of his every word, the fleeting feel of each desperately longed-for touch, Credence wore the weight of the man's lingering gaze like a garment against his skin. His speech, his hands, the heat of his tormenting nearness: each one had come to eclipse the power of all other forces. Nothing, not any indignity of Credence's daily existence could outstrip the knowledge that he was held worthy of the man's precious time. In his patience and generosity, in the trust of his quiet confidences, Mr. Graves had opened a door within him. Beyond it: a tantalizing glimpse of freedom, and an aching desire of such depth Credence feared it might consume him entirely. 

With no more wounds to count by, a day came when Mr. Graves had even taken Credence's face into the sheltered warmth of his hands, strong fingers cradling its upturned curves delicate as a flower. A look of nearly painful reverence had graced his features then, as eyes grown haunted with a nameless hunger held Credence nearly breathless beneath their gaze. That evening Credence had made his way home in a stunned fugue, the feel of Mr. Graves intrepid fingertips still burning against his skin, phantom thumbs tracing hot and wanting against his lower lip. The man's touch never left him all that night, even as the lash of the hated belt undid his miraculous work. In the dark of night, face dry and palms wet with fresh blood, Credence had felt himself truly cherished, Mr. Grave's invisible touch spreading out across his skin, opening him up along every scarred seam. As so many nights before, drifting at the edge of dreams, Credence had known himself then to be immense: powerful enough to bear the touch of the divine, and with Mr. Grave’s unseen caress to guide him, he let himself unfurl, sliding deep into delicious darkness both held and unbound.

**Author's Note:**

> if you'd like to visit:  
> [roy-batty-boy.tumblr.com](https://roy-batty-boy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
